Nathaniel Glenn had said some terrible things in Priscilla's presence the evening of the day when he drove her before him while Richard Travers implored her to hold to her ideal. Fortunately, youth spared Priscilla from a full understanding of her father's words, but she caught the drift of his thought. She was convinced that he feared greatly for her here on earth, and had grave doubts as to her soul's ultimate salvation. There was that within her, so he explained, which, unless curbed and corrected, would cast her into eternal damnation! Those were Nathaniel's words.
"She looked a very devil as she danced and smirked at that strange fellow," so had Glenn described the scene; "a man she says she had never laid eyes on before! A daughter of Satan she seemed, with all the witchcraft of her sort." To Nathaniel, that which he could not understand, was wrong.
Theodora spoke not a word. Certain facts from all the evidence stood forth and alarmed her as deeply—though not as bitterly—as they did her husband. There certainly was a daring and brazenness in a young girl carrying on so before a total stranger. In all the conversation the name of the stranger was not mentioned, and oddly enough Priscilla did not even then connect her friend of the music and laughter with the boy of the Hill Place. How could she, when Jerry-Jo's description still stood unchallenged in her mind? Indeed, the stranger did not seem wholly of the earth, earthy. She had accepted him as another phase evolved by the mysterious rite—a new revelation of the strange god.
From all the torrent of misinterpretation Nathaniel gave vent to, one startling impression remained in Priscilla's mind. Sitting in the bare, unlovely kitchen of the farmhouse, with her troubled parents confronting her, a great wave of realization overpowered the girl. She could never make them understand! There was no need to try. She did not really belong to them, or they to her, and she must—get away!
That was it, of course. The lure had caught her. They all felt as she was now feeling—the Hornbys, all the boys and men who left Kenmore. Something always drove them to see they must go, and that was what the lure meant.
Priscilla laughed.
As usual, this angered Nathaniel beyond control.
"You—laugh—you! Why do you laugh?"
Priscilla leaned back in her hard wooden chair.
"The lure's got me!" she panted.
"The—lure?"
"Yes. It means getting away. You have to follow the lure and find your true place. Some people are put in the wrong place—then the lure gets them!"
At this Theodora gave a moan of understanding. They had driven the child too far, been too hard upon her, and the impulse to fly from the love that was seeking to hold her was the one thing to be avoided.
"I'm tired of things. Once I wanted to go to school, but you wouldn't let me." The blazing eyes were fixed upon Nathaniel. "You're always trying to—to hold me back from—from—my life! I want to go away somewhere! I want"—a half-sob shook the fierce, young voice—"I want to be part of—things, and you—you won't let me! I hate this—this place; I'm choking to death!"
And with this Priscilla got up and flung her arms over her head, while she ejaculated fiercely: "I want to be—doshed!"
The effect of this outburst upon the two listeners was tremendous. Theodora recognized with blinding terror that her daughter was no longer a child! The knowledge was like a stroke that left her paralyzed. What could she hope to do with, and for, this new, strange creature in whose young face rising passion and rebellion were suddenly born? Nathaniel was awed, too, but he managed to utter the command: "Leave the room, hussy!"
When the parents were alone they took stock of the responsibility that was laid upon them. Helplessly Theodora began to cry. She could no more cope with this situation than a baby. She had never risen above or beyond the dead level of Kenmore life, and surely no Kenmore woman had ever borne so unnatural a child. She feared hopelessly and tremblingly.
With Nathaniel it was different. He was a hard man who had forced himself, as he had others, along the one grim path, but he had the male's inheritance of understanding of certain traits and emotions. Had any one suggested to him that his girl had derived from him—not her colourless mother—the desire for excitement through the senses, he would have flung the thought madly from him. Men were men; women were women! Even if temptation came to a girl, only a bad, an evil-natured girl would recognize it and succumb. His daughter, Nathaniel firmly believed, was marked for destruction, and he was frightened and aroused not only for Priscilla herself but for his reputation and position. He had known similar temptation; had overcome it. He understood, or thought he did!
He gave the girl no benefit of doubt; his mind conceived things that never had occurred. He believed she had often met the young fellow from the Hill Place. God alone knew what had gone before!
"What shall we do?" sobbed Theodora. "We cannot make a prisoner of her; we cannot watch her every move—and she's only a bit over fourteen!"
Had the girl died that night Nathaniel would not have mourned her, he would have known only relief and gratitude.
"She was unwelcomed," he muttered to his weeping wife; "and she has become a curse to us. It lies with us to turn the punishment into our souls' good; but what can we do for her?"
Priscilla did not die that night. She slept peacefully and happily with the red, pulsing planet over the hemlock shining faithfully upon her. The next day she reappeared before her parents with a cloudless face and a willingness to make such amends as could be brought about without too much self-abnegation. In the broad light of day the mother could not hold to the horrors of the evening before. She had been nervous and overwrought; it wasn't so bad as they had thought!
"I want you to go erranding," she said to Priscilla soon after the midday meal and by way of propitiation. "It's one by the clock now. Given an hour to go, another to return, and a half hour for the buying, you should be back by four at the latest."
Priscilla looked laughingly up at her mother, "Funny, little mother," she said; "he's made you afraid of me. Hadn't you better tie a string to my foot?" But all the time the girl was thinking. "An hour for both going and coming will be enough, and that will leave an hour for the schoolmaster."
Aloud she said: "I was fiercely angry last night, mother, for he read me wrong and would not believe me, but it made me feel thelure; it really did."
"You must never speak so again, child," Theodora replied, thinking she was impressing the girl; "and, Priscilla, what did you mean by saying you wanted to be—be doshed? That was the most unsanctified word I ever heard. What does it mean? Where did you learn it?"
At this Priscilla doubled over with laughter but managed to say:
"Why, it means just—doshed! Haven't you ever wanted to be doshed, mother, when you were young, and before father took the dosh out of you?"
Theodora was again overcome by former fears, and to confirm her terror Priscilla sprang toward her with outstretched, gripping fingers and wide, eager eyes.
"It means," she breathed, advancing upon her mother's retreating form, "it means skib, skib, skibble—de—de—dosh!"
At this she had her mother by the shoulders and was seeking to kiss the affrighted and appalled face.
Theodora escaped her, and realized that a changeling had indeed entered her home. An unknown element was here. It was as if, having been discovered, Priscilla felt she no longer needed to hide her inner self, but was giving it full sway.
If they could only have known that the spring of imagination and joy had been touched in the girl and merely the madness of youth and the legitimate yearning for expression moved her! But Theodora did not understand and she tried to be stern.
"You are to be back in this house at four!" she cried; "at quarter after at the latest."
So Priscilla started forth. The mother watched her from the doorway. Suspicion was in her heart; she feared the girl would turn toward the woods; she was prepared for that, but instead, the flying figure made for the grassy road leading to Kenmore and was soon lost to sight.
Three miles of level road, much of it smooth, moss-covered rock, was easy travelling for nimble feet and a glad heart. And Priscilla was the gladdest creature afield that day. Impishly she was enjoying the sensation she had created. It appealed to her dramatic sense and animal enjoyment. In some subtle fashion she realized she had balked and defeated her father—she was rather sorry about her mother—but that could be remedied later on. There was no doubt that she had the whip hand of Nathaniel at last, and the subconscious attitude of defiance she always held toward her father was strengthened by the knowledge that he was unjustly judging her.
There were many things of interest in Kenmore that only limited time prevented Priscilla from investigating. She longed to go to the jail and see if the people had prevailed upon old Jerry McAlpin to discharge himself. She admired Jerry's spirit!
She wanted to call upon Mrs. Hornby and question her about Jamsie, her last boy, who had succumbed to the lure of the States. She longed to know the symptoms of one attacked by the lure. Then there was the White Fish Lodge—she did so want to visit Mrs. McAdam. The annual menace of taking Mrs. McAdams' license from her was man's talk just then, and Mrs. McAdam was so splendid when her rights were threatened. On the village Green she annually defended her position like a born orator. Priscilla had heard her once and had never got over her admiration for the little, thin woman who rallied the men to her support with frantic threats as to her handling of their rights unless they helped her fight her battle against a government bent upon taking the living from a "God-be-praised widow-woman with two sons to support."
It had all been so exactly to Priscilla's dramatic taste that she with difficulty restrained herself from calling at the White Fish.
There was a good hour to her credit when the erranding was finished and the time needed for the home run set aside, so to the little cabin, built beside the schoolhouse, she went with heavily loaded arms and an astonishingly light heart.
Since the day when Anton Farwell had undertaken Priscilla's enlightenment, asserting that he had been ordained to do so by her god, he had had an almost supernatural influence upon her thought. For her, he was endowed with mystery, and, with the subtle poetry of the lonely young, she deafened her ears to any normal explanation of the man.
Reaching the cabin, she pushed gently against the door, knowing that if it opened, Kenmore was free to enter. Farwell was in and, when Priscilla stood near him, seemed to travel back from a far place before he saw her. Farwell was an old-young man; he cultivated the appearance of age, but only the very youthful were deceived. His long, dark hair fell about his thin face lankly, and it was an easy matter, by dropping his head, to hide his features completely.
He was tall and, from much stooping over books or the work of his garden, was round-shouldered. When he looked you fully in the face, which he rarely did, it was noticed that his eyes were at once childishly friendly and deathly sad.
The older people of Kenmore had ceased to wonder about him. Having accepted him, they let matters drop. To the children, to all helpless animals, he was an enduring solace and power. When all else failed they looked to him for solution. For this had Priscilla come.
"To be sure!" cried Farwell at length. "It's Priscilla Glenn. Bad child! It's many a day since we had a lesson. There! there! no excuses. Sit down and—own up!"
While he was speaking Farwell replenished the wood on the fire and brushed the ashes from the hearth. Priscilla, in a chair, sat upright and rather breathlessly wondered how she could manage all she wanted to say and hear in the small space of time that was hers.
Anton's back was toward her when she uttered her first question and the words brought him to an upright position, facing her at once.
"Mr. Farwell, where did you come from—I mean before the wreck?"
For a moment the master looked as if about to spring forward to lock the door and bar the windows. Real alarm was in his eyes.
"Who told you to ask that?" he whispered.
"No one. No one has to tell me questions; I have more of my own than I can ask. I never thought before about you, Mr. Farwell, we're so used to you, but now it's because ofme. I want to know. Somebody has got to help me—I feel it coming again."
"Feel what coming?" Farwell sat limply down in the chair he had lately occupied.
"Why, the lure. It comes to the boys, Mr. Farwell. They just get it and go off to the States, and it's come to me! I've always known it would. You see, I've got to go away; not just now, but some time. I'm going out through the Secret Portage. I'm going away, away to find my real place. I'm going to do something—out where the States are. I hoped you came from there; could tell me—how to go about it. Do you know, I feel as if I had been dropped in Kenmore just to rest before I went on!"
Farwell looked at the girl and something new and changed about her startled him as it had her parents, but, being wiser, he felt no antagonism. It was an amazing, an interesting thing. The girl had suddenly developed: that was all. She was eager to try her wings at a longer flight than any of her sex in Kenmore had ever before dreamed. It was amusing even if it were serious.
Years before, Farwell had discovered the girl's keen mind and her quaint originality. As much for his own pleasure as her advantage he had taught her as he had some of the other village children, erratically, inconsequently, and here she was now demanding that he fit her out with a chart for deep-sea sailing.
How could he permit her to harbour, even for an idle moment, the idea of leaving her shelter and going away? At this the thin, dark face grew rigid and stern. But too well the man knew the folly of setting up active opposition to any young thing straining against the door of a cage. Better open the door even if a string on the leg or a clipped wing had to be resorted to!
"Did you ever see the States?" The tense voice was imploring.
"Oh, yes. Why do you wish to go there?"
"Why do the boys?"
This was baffling.
"Well, there was Mrs. Hornby's oldest boy, he went to the States, got the worst of it, and came home to die. He did not find them happy places."
"Yes, but all the other Hornbys went just the same, even Jamsie. It's the chance, you know, the chance to try what's in you, even if youdocome home and die! You never have a chance in Kenmore; and I don't mean to be like my mother—like the other women. You see, Mr. Farwell, I'm willing to suffer, but Iamgoing to know all I want to, and I am going to find a place where I fit in, if I can."
So small and ignorant did the girl look, yet so determined and keen, that Farwell grew anxious. Evidently Nathaniel had borne too hard upon her, borne to the snapping point, and she had, in her wild fashion, caught the infection of the last going away—Jamsie Hornby's. It was laughable, but pathetic.
"What could you do?" Farwell leaned forward and gazed into the strange blue eyes fixed upon him.
"Dance. Have you ever seen me dance? Do you want to?" She was prepared to prove herself.
"Good Lord! no, no!"
"Oh! I can dance. If some one would play for me—play on—on a fiddle, I could dance all day and night. Wouldn't people pay for that?"
This was serious business. By some subtle suggestion Priscilla Glenn had introduced into the bare, cleanly room an atmosphere of danger, a curious sense of unreality and excitement.
"Yes—they do pay," Farwell said slowly; "but where in heaven's name did you get such ideas?"
The girl looked impishly saucy. She was making a sensation again and, while Anton Farwell was not affected as her parents had been, he was undoubtedly impressed.
"It's this way: You have to sell what you've got until you get something better. There isn't an earthly thing I can do but dance now; of course I can learn. Don't you remember the nice story about the old woman who went to market her eggs for to sell? Master Farwell, I'm like her, and my dancing is my—egg!"
She was laughing now, this unreasoning, unreasonable girl, and she was laughing more at Farwell's perplexity than at her own glibness. She must soon go, her time was growing short, but she was enjoying herself immensely.
Looking at her, Farwell was suddenly convinced of one overpowering fact: Priscilla Glenn was destined for—living! Hers was one of those natures that flash now and then upon a commonplace existence, a strange soul from an unknown port, never resting until it finds its way back.
"Poor little girl!" whispered Farwell, and then he talked to her.
Would she let him go to her father and mother?
"What's the use?" questioned Priscilla, and she told him of the experience in the woods. "Father saw only evil when it was the most beautiful thing that ever happened."
Farwell saw a wider stretch and more danger.
"But I will try, and anyway, Priscilla, if I promise to help you get ready, will you promise me to do nothing without consulting me?"
This the girl was ready enough to do. She was restless and defiant under her new emotion, but intuitively she had sought Farwell because he had before aided her and sympathized with her. Yes, she would confide in him.
That night Farwell called at Lonely Farm. Followed by his two lean, ugly sledge dogs he made his way to the barn where Nathaniel was doing the evening's work. While the men talked, the dogs, behind the building, fought silently and ferociously. Farwell had fed one before he left home and a bitter jealousy lay between the animals. It was almost more than one might hope that the master could influence Glenn or change his mind, but Farwell did bring to bear an argument that, because nothing else presented itself, swayed the father.
"You cannot get the same results from all children," Farwell said, looking afar and smiling grimly; "there's no use trying to make an abnormal child into a normal one. Priscilla is like a wild thing of the woods. You may tame her, if you go about it right; you'll never be able to force her. She's kind and affectionate, but she cannot be fettered or caged, without mischief being done. Better let her think she is having her own way, or—she may take it!"
"I'll break her will!" muttered Glenn.
"And if you do—what then?"
"She'll fall into line—women do! Their life takes it out of them. Once I get her on the right track, she'll go straight enough. There's no other way for her sex, thank God!"
"She'd be a poor, despicable thing if she was cowed." Contempt rang in Farwell's voice.
"She'd serve her purpose." Glenn was so angry that he became brutal. "Spirit ain't needed for her job."
"Purpose? Job?" Farwell repeated.
"Yes. Child-bearing; husband-serving. If they take to it naturally they're all the better off; if they have to be brought to terms—well, then——"
Gradually the truth dawned upon Farwell, and his thin face flushed, while in his heart he pitied Theodora Glenn and Priscilla.
"I wish I'd kept to my first ideas!" Glenn was saying surlily, "and never let the limb learn of you or another. I gave her her head and here we are!"
"Had she been taught regularly by some one better fitted than I she would have done great credit to you. She has a bright mind and a vivid imagination."
To this Glenn made no response, but the energy with which he applied the brush to his horse caused the animal to rear dangerously.
"Come, come," Farwell continued; "better loosen the rein and let her run herself out—she may settle happily after a bit. If you don't, she may run farther than you know."
"Run? Run where?" Nathaniel, safe from the horse's heels, glared at Farwell.
"To the States. There is no sex line on the border."
"But there's good, plain law. I'd have her back and well cowed, if she attempted that!"
And then Farwell played his card.
"See here, Mr. Glenn, you do not want to drive this girl of yours to—to hell! Of course there is law and of course you have the whip hand while Priscilla is in your clutch, but with a wit like hers, if she slipped across the border she could lose herself so completely that neither your hate nor legal power could ever find her. Do you want to drive her to such lengths?"
Some of the truth of what Farwell was saying dashed Glenn's temper with fear. Hard and cruel as he was, he was not devoid of affection of a clammy sort, and for an instant Priscilla as a helpless girl wandering among strangers replaced Priscilla, the rebellious daughter, and pity moved him.
"Well, what do you suggest?" he asked grudgingly.
"Simply this: You can trust me. Good Lord you surely can trust me with her! Let me teach her and bring a little diversion into her life. What she wants is what all young things want—freedom and fun—pure, simple fun. Don't let her think you are expecting evil of her; let her alone!"
The extent of Glenn's confusion may be estimated by the fact that he permitted Priscilla thereafter to go, when she chose, to Kenmore and learn of Farwell what Farwell chose to give her, and, for the first time in the girl's life, she felt a glow of appreciation toward her father.
With this new freedom she became happier, less restless, and her admiration for Farwell knew no bounds.
The schoolmaster managed to procure a violin and laboriously practised upon it until an almost forgotten gift was somewhat restored. He did not play as Travers did—he had only his ear to depend upon; he had never been well taught—but his music sufficed to accompany Priscilla's nimble feet, and it gave Farwell himself an added interest in his dull life.
"She'll marry Jerry-Jo McAlpin some day," the schoolmaster thought at times; "and have a brood of half-breeds—no quarter-breeds—and all this joy and gladness will become a blurred, or blotted-out, background. Good God!"
Mrs. McAdam of the White Fish Lodge came out upon the village Green one evening in late August and, in a loud voice, hailed Jerry McAlpin:
"I've heard it said," called she, "that you, you Jerry McAlpin, are not against the taking away of my license; not against the making of Kenmore a teetotal town!"
There was menace in the high-pitched voice; warning in the accusation. But Jerry had not taken a drop to drink since his self-releasement from jail (after an apology from Hornby), and he was uncannily clear headed.
"I've said that same!" he replied, and stopped short in his walk.
Two or three other men, followed by dogs, paused to listen. Then a boat, coming in loaded with fish, tied up to the wharf, and the crew, leaning over the sides, waited for developments.
"And for why?" called Mary, hands on hips and her sharp eyes blazing.
"For this: The drink turns us mad! I'm late finding it out, but I've found it! It sent me to jail with my wits all afire. My boy drank that night, drank like a young beast, and lay on the floor of the cabin, they tell me, after I went away; and he only sixteen, and his dead uncle stark there beside him for company!"
By this time a goodly gathering was on the Green, and Mary was in her element.
"And so," she said calmly, waxing eloquent as her power grew, "you and the like of you would take an honest woman's living from her, and she a God-be-praised widow at that, because you can't control the beast in yourselves and can't train the cubs of your kennels!"
This was going to great lengths, and many a listener who sided with Mary was chilled by her offensive words.
"Come! come!" warned Hornby, the father of the recently lured Jamsie, "them ain't exactly womanly terms, are they?"
But Mary was on her high horse. Availing herself of the safety her sex secured for her, she struck left and right without grace or favour, and her audience gaped while they listened.
"Oh, I know! 'Tis this year a dry town with me ruined, and it's next year a wet town with McAlpin, Hornby, or another creature in trousers taking my place; and after that there will be no more dry town for ever and ever! It's not morals you are after, but a man-controlled tavern. Blast ye!" A sneer marked Mary's thin, dark face. "You want your drinks and your freedom, but you say you fear for your lads. Shame on you! Have I no lads?"
Silence.
"Have I not trained them in the way they should go? Do I fear for them?" A grave silence, and McAlpin glared at Hornby, while an irreverent youth, with a fish dangling from his hands, laughed and muttered:
"Like gorrems!"
"Play a man's part, Jerry McAlpin. 'Tis not for Jerry-Jo you fear; it's my business you'd get from me, and you know it! Teach that lad of yours to be decent, as I've trained mine. I have no fear for my boys! I know what I'm talking about, and I tell you now, if my lads were like yours I'd fling the business over, but I don't see why a decent woman, and her a God-be-praised widow, should lose her living because you can't train your brats in the way they should go. But this is mine! If you don't stand by me and swear to do it here and now, it's not another drink one of you shall get in my place till after things are settled."
This was going farther than Mary McAdam had ever gone before. She had threatened dire restrictions against them who failed to support her cause should her cause be won in spite of them; she had even hinted at cash payments to insure her against want if, possibly, her license was revoked, but this shutting down upon human rights before election came off was upsetting to the last degree. Hornby looked at McAlpin and McAlpin dropped his eyes; there was a muttering and a grumbling, and a general feeling prevailed that every man should be his own keeper and the guardian of his own sons, and it would be a bitter wrong against a God-be-praised widow to let family affairs ruin her business.
In the end Mary McAdam, with a manly following of stern upholders of individual rights and the opportunity for mutual good fellowship, retired to the bar of the White Fish and, waited upon by Mary herself and her two exemplary sons, made merry far into the evening.
Tom and Sandy McAdam, handsome, carefree boys of sixteen and eighteen, passed the drinks with many a jest and often a wink, but never a drop drank they, not until the Lodge had closed its doors on all visitors, and then Tom, the elder, with a final leer at Sandy the younger, drained off a glass of bad whisky with a grace that betokened long practice.
"Hold, there!" cautioned Sandy, filling a glass of beer for himself; "you'll not be able to hide it from the mother, you galoot."
"Oh, the night's long before the day breaks, and it's yourself as must take the turn at house chores the morning."
The following day was cloudy and threatening, and why Mary McAdam should take that time for suggesting that her boys go over to Wyland Island and buy their winter suits, she herself could not have told. Perhaps, from the assurance of last night, she felt freer with money; perhaps she thought the boys could not be spared so well later; be that as it might, she insisted, even against Sandy's remark that "a lad couldn't put his mind to a winter outfit with the sweat rolling down his back," that they should set forth by eleven o'clock.
"Make a lark of it," said she generously; "take that scapegoat Jerry-Jo McAlpin with you and have it out with him about being a young beast and worrying the heart out of old Jerry, who means well but ain't got no kind of a headpiece. Take your lunch along and——"
Here she pointed her remarks with a lean, commanding finger: "You take that sail off the launch! It's quiet enough now, but it ain't going to last forever, and I couldn't rest with three flighty lads in a boat with a sailandan engine."
Mrs. McAdam always expected to be obeyed. Her personality was such that she generally was; but always, when disobedience followed, it was hidden from her immediate attention, and she was never one to show the weakness of watching to see her orders carried out. That was why she, of all the people in the little village, did not realize that her boys often drank more than was good for them—always managed, by clever devices, to escape her eye.
"A glass of harmless stuff now and again," she would say with a toss of her head; "what's that but a proof of the lads' self-control? That's what I'm a-telling you: make your lads strong and self-respecting."
Tom did not take the sail from the boat that day, neither did he expect to use it. He furled it close and shipped it carefully, but it was late, and, in the last hurry, he kept his mother's caution in mind, but did not carry out her command. Then Sandy, when they were about to start, did a bold thing. Stealing into the bar, he took a bottle of whisky and a bottle of brandy; these he hid under his reefer, and, with a laugh at his own cunning, put into the empty places on the shelves two partly filled bottles, and ran to the wharf.
Mary McAdam waved them a farewell from the steps. She had packed the hamper and stowed it under the very sail she had ordered off. In the excitement of preparation she overlooked it entirely.
"You, Sandy, see to it that you buy a suit that you won't repent when the winter nips you!" she called.
"And you, Tom, get a quiet colour andnochecks! When yer last year's suit shrank and the squares got crooked ye looked like a damaged checker-board!"
Jerry-Jo McAlpin from his seat in the stern roared with laughter at this, and just then the sturdy little engine puffed, thudded, and "caught on," and off went the three with loud words of good-bye.
The Channel was as smooth as a summer brook, and the launch shot ahead.
"It's a bit chilly," Sandy said as they neared the mouth opening at Flying Point into the Little Bay.
"Put on your storm coat," cautioned Tom, "and you, too, Jerry-Jo; we'll get the wind when we pass Dreamer's Rock and strike the Big Bay."
The boys got out their coats and put them on, and then Sandy said:
"See what I've got! Snitched it from under the mother's eye, too!" He held up the bottles. Tom laughed, but Jerry-Jo reached out for one.
"A nip will ward off the cold better than a coat," he said.
They all three indulged in this preventive.
Beyond Dreamer's Rock the wind fulfilled Tom's prophecy; it was not a great wind, but it was a steady one, and, perhaps, because the whisky had warmed Tom's blood too hastily and hotly, he grew reckless.
"What do you say, fellows, to eating our lunch and then trying sail and engine together? We could beat the record and surprise folks by our time in coming and going. The wind's safe; not a puff! What do you say?"
Jerry-Jo was something of a coward, but by the time he had eaten his lunch and washed it down with more whisky than he had meant to take, he was ready to handle the sail himself and proceeded to do so.
Little Bear Island was the last one before the entrance to Big Bay, and when the launch passed that, either the wind had changed, or Tom, at the engine and Jerry-Jo at the sail, had lost nerve and head, for the boat became unmanageable. Sandy, keeping to the exact middle of the boat, called to Jerry-Jo to lower the sail, but Jerry-Jo did not hear, or failed to clearly comprehend. The little craft shot ahead like an arrow, but Tom knew that when they went about there would be trouble. They were fully a mile from either rock-bound shore. Wyland Island was a good two miles before them, and home seven miles to the rear.
A biggish sea was rolling and the sky was clouding threateningly. The liquor had done its worst for the boys: it had unnerved them, while at the same time it had given them a mad courage.
"Keep straight ahead," shouted Tom, "until we get near shore, and then pull in that infernal sail!"
What happened just then Jerry-Jo could never tell, and he alone remained at the day's end for the telling!
They were in the water, all three of them! For a moment Jerry-Jo, thoroughly sobered and keener witted than he had ever been before in his life, believed he was the only one of the party ever again to appear in that angry sea. Then he saw the over-turned boat, heard the last sobbing pants of the engine as it filled with water; then Tom's black head and agonized face appeared; then Sandy's red head. They all made for the boat and the wide sail lying flat in the water!
They reached the launch, chilled and desperate, climbed upon it, and gazed helplessly at each other. Through chattering teeth they tried to speak, but only a moan escaped Tom's blue lips. The wind was colder; the sun had gone behind a bank of dull storm clouds. After a long while Sandy, looking over the expanse of ugly choppy waves, shuddered and panted:
"It's going to be dark soon; it can't be more than a half mile to yonder rock—I'm for swimming to it! Once on land we can move about, get our blood going, and perhaps find a sheltered spot—till—morning!"
Tom looked at his brother vaguely; he was suffering keenly:
"Don't be a fool!" he shuddered. Jerry-Jo, huddled in a wet heap, was sobbing like a baby—gone utterly to pieces.
Another hideous space of silence followed, then Sandy spoke again:
"I'm going to make the try. I'm dying of cold. It's the only chance for any of us. Here goes!"
And before any one could interfere he made his leap and was in the water, a bobbing speck among the ugly white caps!
"Good God!"
That was all Tom said, but his crazed eyes were upon that strained, uplifted face. Jerry-Jo ceased his moaning and—laughed! It was a foolish cackle, such as a maniac might give, mistaking a death-struggle for a bit of play.
"He's—a good swimmer!" he gasped, and laughed again. Tom turned, for an instant, wondering eyes upon him. He may have, in that moment, estimated his own chance, his duty to Jerry-Jo, and his determination to be with his brother. The perplexed gaze lasted but the briefest space of time and then with:
"All right! here goes!" he was making for Sandy with a strength born of despair and madness.
"Come back!" shrieked Jerry-Jo with the frenzy of one deserted and too cowardly or helpless to follow: "Come back!"
But neither swimmer heard nor heeded. For a moment more the black and the red heads bobbed about, the faces turned toward each other grimly. Even in that waste and at the bitter last the sense of companionship held their thought. Jerry-Jo, rigid and every sense at last alert in an effort for self-preservation, saw Sandy smile. It was a wonderful smile: it was like a flash of sunlight on that black sea; then Sandy's lips moved, but no one was ever to know what he said, and then—Jerry-Jo was alone in the coming night and the rolling waves!
"They should," said Mary McAdam, "be home by seven at the latest. The wind's with them coming back; it was with them part of the way going!"
Anton Farwell sat on the steps of the Lodge, his dogs peacefully lying at his feet. All day, since hearing of the boys' trip, he had been restless and anxious. Farwell had his bad hours often, but he rarely permitted himself companionship at such times, but to-day, after his noon meal, he had been unable to keep away from the Lodge.
"Fall's setting in early," Mrs. McAdam went on; "pickerel come; whitefish go. Beasts and fish and birds ken a lot, Mr. Farwell."
"They certainly do. The more you live with dumb creatures, the more you are impressed with that. Is that Sandy's dog, Mrs. McAdam?"
A yellow, lank dog came sniffing around the side of the house and lay down, friendly wise, by Farwell.
"Yes, and he's a cute one. Do you believe me, Mr. Farwell, that there Bounder knows the engine of our boat! Any other boat can come into the Channel and he don't take any notice, but let my boys be out late and Bounder, lying asleep on the floor, will start up at the chugging of the launch and make for the dock. He never makes a mistake."
Farwell laughed and bent over to smooth Bounder's back.
"What time is it?" he asked.
"Six-thirty," Mary replied with alarming readiness. "Six-thirty, and the clock's a bit slow at that."
Farwell felt sure it was a good ten minutes slow; but because of that he turned the conversation.
"Jerry McAlpin was telling me to-day," he said in his low, pleasant voice, "of how he and others used to smuggle liquor over the border. Jerry seems repenting of his past."
Mary laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
"My man and Jerry, with old Michael McAlpin, were the freest of smugglers. In them days the McAlpins wasn't pestered with feelings; they was good sports. Jerry marrying that full-breed had it taken out of him somewhat—she was a hifty one. Them Indians never can get off their high heels—not the full-breeds. But I tell you, Mr. Farwell, and you take it for truth, when Jerry begins to maudle about repentance, it's just before a—debauch. I know the signs."
Just then Bounder raised his head and howled.
"None of that! Off with yer!" shouted Mary, making for the dog with nervous energy. "Once," she went on, her lips twitching, "my man and Michael McAlpin had a good one on the officers. They had a big load of the stuff on the cart and were coming down the road back of the Far Hill Place when they sensed the custom men in the bushes. What do they do but cut the traces and lick the horses into a run; then they turned the barrels loose, jumped off, letting them roll down the hill, and they, themselves, made for safety. It was only a bit more trouble to go back in a week's time and gather up the barrels; but those government devils followed the horses like idiots and felt mighty set up when they overtook them! But when they saw they hadonlythe horses, oh! good Lord!"
Farwell laughed absently; his eyes were fixed on the water. Even in the Channel it had an angry look. The current was set from the Bay, and the stream rose and fell as if it had an ugly secret in its keeping.
"Mrs. McAdam," he said suddenly, "I'm going out to—to meet the boys!"
"God save ye, Mr. Farwell—for which?"
When Mary fell into that form of speech she was either troubled or infuriated.
"I'm restless; I feel like a fling. Come on, you scamps!" to his dogs, "get home and keep house till I come back."
His dogs leaped to him and then made for the Green. Without another word Farwell walked to his launch at the foot of the wharf steps and prepared for his trip.
A black wave of fear enveloped Mary McAdam. She was overcome by a certainty of evil, and, when Farwell's boat had disappeared, she strode to the Green and gave vent to her anxiety. There were those who comforted, those who jeered, but the men were largely away on fishing business, and the women and boys were more interested in her excitement than they were in her cause for fear.
It was eight o'clock and very dark when Doctor Ledyard, driving down from Far Hill Place for the mail, paused to listen to Mrs. McAdam's expressions of anxiety. Young Dick Travers was beside him, and Mary's words held him.
"Was Jerry-Jo with your boys, Mrs. McAdam?" he asked.
"He was that! And Jerry-Jo always brings ill-luck on a trip. I should have known better than to let the half-breed scamp go. 'Twas pity as moved me. Jerry-Jo is one as thinks rocking a boat is spirit, and yelling for help, when no help is needed, a rare joke. The young devil!"
Doctor Ledyard and Dick stayed on after getting the mail. A strange, tense feeling was growing in the place. Mary's terror was contagious.
"If the men would only come back," moaned the distracted mother; "I'd send the lot of them out after the young limbs!"
At eight-thirty the storm broke. A dull, thick storm which had used most of its fury out beyond Flying Point, and in the breast of the sullen wind came the sound of an engine panting, panting in the darkness that was shot by flashes of lightning and rent by thunder-claps. Mary McAdam gazed petrified at Bounder, who had followed her to the Green.
"Why don't yer yelp?" she muttered, giving the dog a kick. But Bounder blinked indifferently as the coming boat drew near and nearer.
Every boy, woman, and child, with the old men and lazy young ones, were at the wharf when the launch emerged from the darkness. Some one was standing up guiding the boat, ready to protect it from violent contact; some one was huddled on the floor of the boat—some one who made no cry, did not look up. They two were all! Just then a lurid flash of lightning seemed to photograph the scene forever on the minds of the onlookers.
Ledyard, with Dick, was close to the boat when it touched the dock. By the lurid light of electricity the face of the man in the launch rose sharply against the darkness and for one instant shone as if to attract attention.
Farwell was known by reputation to the doctor; he had probably been seen by him many times, but certainly his face had never made an impression upon him before. But now, in the hour of anguish and excitement, it held Ledyard's thought to the exclusion of everything else.
"Who? where?" The questions ran through his mind and then, because every sense was alert, he knew!
"Jerry-Jo!" Dick was calling, "where are the others?"
It was a mad question, but the boy, huddling in the launch, replied quiveringly:
"Gone! gone to the bottom off Dreamer's Rock."
Then he began to whimper piteously.
A shuddering cry rang out. It was Mary McAdam, who, followed by her dog, ran wildly, apron over head, toward the White Fish Lodge.
Farwell, casting all reserve aside, worked with Ledyard over the prostrate Jerry-Jo. The recognition was no shock to him; he had always known Ledyard; had cleverly kept from his notice heretofore, but now the one thing he had hoped to escape was upon him, and he grew strangely indifferent to what lay before.
He obeyed every command of the doctor as they sought to restore Jerry-Jo. More than once their eyes met and their hands touched, but the contact did not cause a tremor in either man.
When the inevitable arrives a strength accompanies it. Nature rarely deserts either friend or foe at the critical moment.
The bay was dragged, various methods being used, but the bodies of Sandy and Tom McAdam were not recovered. Mary McAdam with strained eyes and rigid lips waited at the wharf as each party returned, and when at last hope died in her poor heart, she set about the doing of two things that she felt must be done.
The behaviour of the boys in the boat on the day of the accident had at last reached her ears, for, with such excitement prevailing and Jerry-Jo reduced to periods of nervous babbling as he repeated again and again the story, Mary was certain of overhearing the details. As far as possible she verified every word. That her sons had disobeyed her about the sail there could be no doubt, and when she went to the shelf of the bar and discovered the half-filled bottles which Sandy had put in the places of the brandy and whisky, her heart gave up doubt. She relinquished all that she had prided herself upon in the past. They had defied and deceived her! They had permitted her to be mocked while she prated of her superiority! It was bitter hard, but Mary McAdam made no feeble cry—she prepared for the final act in the little drama. Beyond that she could not, would not look.
"Dig me two graves," she commanded Big Hornby; "dig them one on either side of my husband's."
"You'll be thinking the bodies will yet be found, poor soul?" Hornby had a tender nature kept human by his hunger for his absent boys.
"I'm not thinking. I'm doing my part; let others do the same."
And then Mary went to Anton Farwell. Farwell, since the night of the tragedy, was waiting, always waiting for the inevitable. Every knock at his door brought him panting to his feet. He knew Doctor Ledyard would come; he fervently hoped he would, and soon, but the days dragged on. There were moments when the man had a wild desire to shoulder his bag and set forth under shadow of the night and the excitement, for one of his long absences, this one, however, to terminate as far from Kenmore as possible. Once he had even started, but at the edge of the water where his boat lay he halted, deterred by the knowledge that his safer course lay in facing what he must face sooner or later. Now that he was known to be alive it were easier to deal with one man than with the pack of bloodhounds which that one man might set upon him. Always the personal element entered in—it was weak hope, but the only one. He might win Ledyard; he could not win the pack!
When Mary McAdam knocked on Farwell's door he thought the time had come, but the sight of the distracted mother steadied him. Here was something for him to do, something to carry him away from his lonely forebodings.
"Come in, Mrs. McAdam. Rest yourself. You look sorely in need of rest."
It was the early evening of a hot day. It was lighter out of doors than in the cottage, for the shades were drawn at Farwell's windows; he disliked the idea of being watched from without.
"I can't rest, Master Farwell, till I've done my task," said the poor soul, sinking into the nearest chair. "And it's to get your help I've come."
"I'll do what I can," murmured Farwell. "What I'll be permitted to do," he felt would be more true.
"I've said more than once, Mr. Farwell, that were my boys like other boys I'd give up the business of the White Fish. Well, my lads were like others, only they were keener about deceiving me. I thought I'd made them strong and sure, but I did the same hurt to my flesh and blood that I did to others. I put evil too close and easy to them. I prided myself on what I had never done! They'll come back to me no more. Could I have a talk with them, things might be straightened out; but I must do what is to be done alone."
Not a quiver shook the low, severe voice. The very hardness moved Farwell to deep pity.
"It's now, Mr. Farwell, that I'd have you come to the Lodge and help me with my task, and when it's over I want you to stand with me beside those two empty graves and say what you can for them who never had the right mother to teach them. I'm no church woman; the job of priest and minister sickens me, but I know a good man when I see one. You helped the lads while they lived; you risked your life to help them home at the last; and it's you who shall consecrate the empty beds where I'd have my lads lie if the power were mine!"
Farwell got up and paced the room restlessly. Suddenly, with Ledyard's recognition, the poor shell of respectability and self-respect which, during his lonely years, had grown about him, was torn asunder, and he was what he knew the doctor believed him. To such, Mary McAdam's request seemed a cruel jest, a taunt to drive him into the open. And yet he knew that up to the last ditch he must hold to what he had secured for himself—the trust and friendship of these simple people. Hard and distasteful as the effort was he dared not turn himself from it. Full well he knew that Ledyard's magnifying glass was, unseen, being used against him even now. The delay was probably caused by the doctor's silent investigation of his recent life, his daily deeds. He could well imagine the amusement, contempt, and disbelief that would meet the story of his poor, blameless years during which he had played with children, worked in his garden, been friends with the common folk, not from any high motive, but to keep himself from insanity! He had had to use any material at hand, and it had brought about certain results that Ledyard would dissect and toss aside, he would never believe! Still the attempt to live on, as he had lived, must be undertaken. A kind of desperation overcame him.
What did it matter? He might just as well go on until he was stopped. He was no safer, no more comfortable, sitting apart waiting for his summons. He would, as far as in him lay, ignore the menacing thing that hovered near, and play the part of a man while he might.
"I'm ready to go with you, Mrs. McAdam," he said, turning for his hat, "and as we go tell me what you are about to do."
It was no easy telling. The mere statement of fact was so crude that Farwell could not, by any possibility, comprehend the dramatic scene he was soon to witness and partake of.
"I'm going to keep my word," Mary McAdam explained. "I'll not be waiting for the license to be given, or taken away, I'll keep my word."
It was a still, breathless night, with a moon nearly full, and as Mrs. McAdam, accompanied by Farwell, passed over the Green toward the Lodge, the idlers and loiterers followed after at a respectful distance. Mary was the centre of attraction just then, and Farwell always commanded attention, used as the people were to him.
"Come on! come on!" called Mary without turning her head. "Bring others and behold the sight of your lives. Behold a woman keeping her word when the need for the keeping is over!"
A growing excitement was rising in Mary's voice; she was nearing the end of her endurance and was becoming reckless.
By the time the Lodge was reached a goodly crowd was at the steps leading up to the bar. Jerry McAlpin was there with Jerry-Jo beside him. Hornby, just come from the digging of the two graves, stood nearby with the scent of fresh earth clinging to him.
Suddenly Mary McAdam came out of the house, her arms filled with bottles, while behind her followed Farwell rolling a cask.
What occurred then was so surprising and bewildering that those who looked on were never able to clearly describe the scene. Standing with her load, Mary McAdam spoke fierce, hot words. She showed herself no mercy, asked for no pity. She had dealt in a business that threatened the souls of men and boys, made harder the lives of women. She had blinded herself and made herself believe that she and hers were better, stronger than others, and now——
Mary was magnificent in her abandon and despair. Her words flowed freely, her eyes flashed.